Domain name strategy, advice, tips, and best practices by domain name expert Bill Sweetman.

February 11, 2015

Almost every day I get approached by would-be domain speculators (a.k.a. domainers) wanting me to sell their domains or give them feedback on their domain portfolios. Sadly, 99% of the domains that come across my desk are mediocre and have zero chance of being re-sold. In fact, most of the domains I get sent shouldn’t have been registered in the first place. Yes, they’re that bad! It pains me to have to tell people that they’ve wasted their valuable time and hard-earned money on buying this crap, but they deserve a reality check.

While there are many people and companies that have made a very good living from the speculative buying and selling of domain names, that doesn’t mean this is an easy field to break into and that hard work isn’t required. Frank Schilling didn’t make his millions by accident or dumb luck; he’s worked seven days a week for two decades to build his successful domain empire. The same can be said for many of his peers.

The common thread I have noticed with the newest generation of people who have been successful in this field, the folks that have emerged in the last five years, is that they didn’t just dive in and register a whack of domain names – anyone with a credit card can do that. These people did their homework first.

Your goal shouldn’t be to amass the largest portfolio of domain names. Your goal should be to really understand what types of domain names can be re-sold for a profit. Then, and only then, should you start building your domain portfolio.

One of the cool things I admire about the domain speculating industry is that a lot of the professionals in this field are willing to share their expertise with newcomers. This means that you can avoid making the same mistakes that they did. There are numerous excellent blogs where professional domain speculators share their wisdom on a daily basis, plus a wealth of other resources and tools to bring a newcomer quickly up to speed.

Because I don’t have the time to individually help every aspiring domain speculator that approaches me, I usually recommend that they take the following essential steps to learn more about what works, and doesn’t work, in this field.

Do not register a single domain name for potential re-sale until you have completed the remaining steps. (From what I have seen, this is the hardest step for people to take!)

Purchase and read Sean Stafford’s excellent eBook, “Domain Graduate”, which can be obtained at http://www.domaingraduate.com. For the price of registering two domain names, you will learn a ton about what kind of domains to register, what kind of domains to avoid, and where to sell your domains. I insist that everyone who works for me read this eBook because I consider it the definitive guide to this field. Lots of eBooks have been written on this topic, but Sean’s eBook is the best one I have ever read.

Purchase and read David Kesmodel's excellent book “The Domain Game” (available at http://thedomaingame.org/), which is an entertaining and informative read about the birth of the domain speculating business. The Domain Game features excellent profiles of some of the pioneers in the space including Scott Day, Garry Chernoff, Frank Schilling, and Mike Mann.

Join a domain speculator discussion forum such as DNForum or NamePros and read as much as you can. Tip: spend your first week reading and getting to know the lay of the land before you start posting questions.

Analyze the weekly domain sales reports published by industry tracker Ron Jackson on DN Journal and for each domain ask yourself, "why did someone buy this domain?"

If possible, attend a domain name conference such as NamesCon or TRAFFIC or a local domain investor meetup.

Once you’ve completed the seven steps above, you will be ready to register (or buy or trade) your first domain name for re-sale. Best wishes to you and your domains as you embark on this exciting new venture!

Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.

February 2, 2015

While attending the NamesCon domain name conference last month, I had the opportunity to sit down for one-on-one meetings with a variety of industry colleagues. Quite a few of them asked me what I was up to these days, and I realized that if my domain industry buddies don’t know what I am doing for a living, then folks outside of the industry definitely wouldn’t know.

So, with that in mind, here’s a brief summary of what I am doing work-wise. My main focus is running Name Ninja, and what we (yes, there’s a team of us) primarily do is help clients acquire a specific domain name they want that is already owned by another party. Technically, the term for the role that we play is Domain Buyer Broker, meaning we represent the buyer in the transaction. Our clients range from serial entrepreneurs to early-stage startups to marketing executives at larger companies. Acquisition budgets for the domains we get asked to acquire are all over the map, and sometimes have no logical correlation with the size of the company wanting to buy the domain – or fair market value! I will probably do another blog post about the harsh realities of startup and corporate domain acquisition budgets, but let’s just say that not every company wants to, or can afford to, spend five, six, or even seven figures on a domain name. Even some Fortune 500 companies balk at paying more than $1,000 to acquire a domain name, as crazy as that may sound. Naturally, I provide a lot of ‘reality checks’ to clients who are under the impression they can buy a one-word .com domain for a few thousand dollars. Sadly, it’s not 1995 anymore.

Although Name Ninja is based in Canada, the vast majority of our clients are in the US and Europe, although we are delighted to work with Canadian clients when the opportunity presents itself. Most of the domains we help clients acquire are one and two-word .com domains, but we’re TLD agnostic and will help clients acquire any domain in any extension they desire. In addition to lots of .com domains, we’ve helped clients acquire .net, .org, .TV, .co, .biz, .ca, .fr, plus a smattering of new TLD domains. Interestingly, it’s been a year since hundreds of new TLD domains have publicly launched and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times a client has expressed an interest in one of the new TLD domains. For them, and for now at least, .com is still king.

A common reaction I get from people when I tell them what I do for a living is that they are surprised to hear that someone, let alone a team of people, can make a viable living just focused on acquiring domain names for others. “Surely that’s not your full-time job,” they ask with a puzzled look on their face. Yup, it certainly is, and here’s why: There are thousands of startups, new businesses, and new products being launched every single day by entrepreneurs around the world, and most of these new companies are going to need a domain name at some point. Not surprisingly, in many cases these entrepreneurs’ first choice of domain name is owned by someone else. Some of these entrepreneurs realize they need help acquiring their ideal domain name, and that’s when they seek out the help of a domain name buyer brokerage like Name Ninja.

I love what I do, and nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing one of our clients get a domain name they’ve been wanting for months or even years. I should add here that not every domain acquisition we do for clients is a purchase from a third party. Sometimes we’re able to scoop up domains for clients during the expiry stage (here’s a great case study of one such project) and other times we’ve been even able to get domains donated to our clients.

One of the things I love about my job, even though most of the time it doesn’t feel like a “job”, is that every domain project is different and comes with its own set of challenges. No two projects are identical, and each is like a new puzzle waiting to be solved.

People often think that the hardest part of domain acquisition projects is the negotiation, but in my experience the hardest part of what we do is identifying and contacting the domain owner. We love it when we discover the domain is owned by a domainer, because most domainers want to be found and are interested in selling their domains. I wish the same could be said for some members of the general public, and don’t get me started about large corporations that are just sitting on some killer domains. Sometimes it’s really obvious who the owner is and it’s relatively easy to reach them, but other times it can take weeks or months of detective work to track down the real owner of a domain name and convince them to talk to us. We’ll go to just about any length – as long as it is legal and ethical – to find a domain name owner and get their attention, even if that has meant doing some pretty crazy things. Without wishing to give away any trade secrets, I can say that some of our projects have involved helium balloons, mint tea, and an undercover agent who speaks five languages.

I’ve also done a number of pro-bono assignments for individuals and companies whose domain names have been lost or stolen, and these projects are the most rewarding assignments of all.

So that’s what I do for a living, and I feel blessed that it’s something I really enjoy. Life is far too short to be doing work that you don’t find interesting or fulfilling. I am also deeply thankful to my Name Ninja team and amazing clients and industry partners for making my unusual “job” a wonderful reality.

Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.

May 21, 2014

It's been exactly one year since I launched Name Ninja. To celebrate this major milestone, we created the following infographic that reveals some of the data behind the company's first year of lethal domain name consulting. Check it out! (You can click on the graphic for a larger version.)

Thank you to our many clients, partners, and friends for an amazing 12 months.

Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.

September 3, 2013

The next time you find yourself bemoaning the fact a domain speculator owns a domain name that you want, think again. It’s far better that a professional domain speculator owns the parked domain than it is sitting dormant with a mid-to-large sized company. Here’s my take on why…

First of all, the reason most domain speculators or "domainers" own domains in the first place is because they are hoping to sell them one day. If you contact them and are willing to pay fair market value for their domain name, then chances are you will get a quick response (often within hours) and can sew up a deal within days if not a week.

In fact, millions of domains owned by domainers are available for instant purchase at a fixed price, meaning you don't even have to go to the trouble of contacting the owner or negotiating with them. If you are comfortable with the purchase price you can simply whip out your credit card and buy the domain name on the spot. You will probably have it within days if not hours.

Now contrast this with a domain owned (but not used) by a mid-to-large sized company. First you have to figure out who the right person at the company is to speak to about the domain. It could be their head of marketing, the IT person, the in-house lawyer, or even the CEO. Once you've figured out who you need to speak to the next hurdle is getting through to them. That can take weeks.

Many times these large companies aren't used to being asked about purchasing a domain name they own. It confuses and puzzles them, and this will lead to them needing to have lots of internal discussions and meetings. Finally, and typically weeks or months later, you may get to the point where you are able to negotiate on price, and this is where things can go really wonky.

Unlike domainers, who buy and sell domains all the time and know what a comparable domain might realistically sell for in today’s market, the folks at these companies often have unrealistic expectations of the value of their domain, simply don't know any better, or just cannot be bothered to engage in a discussion about selling the domain for less than a six-figure price, even if a domainer would happily sell the same domain for four figures. It's just not worth their time.

Don’t get me wrong. I empathize with the folks at these large companies, I enjoy interacting with them, and I understand why they often take the approach that they do. In fact, I would probably do the same thing if I were in their shoes, especially if I didn’t know much about the secondary market for domain names. But when you step back and look at these two scenarios objectively -- a domain owned by a domainer and a comparable domain owned by a large corporation -- I’d bet that in almost every case the domain owned by the domainer can be acquired for at least half the price and a quarter the time.

When I am looking for domains to buy on behalf of my clients in my role as a Buyer Broker at Name Ninja, I love it when I discover that the domain is owned by a domainer, and I shudder when it is a large corporation. I know what the implications of the latter usually mean to my client's budget and timeline, and it is not pretty.

Remember this the next time you are griping about domain speculators; they are probably the least of your worries. If a Fortune 500 company owns the domain you want, now that’s when you should be afraid, be very afraid...

Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.

August 12, 2013

As the Lead Ninja over at domain name consulting firm Name Ninja, I get asked so often by people for help selling their domain names that I figured I should finally write a blog post about this topic that I can refer them to. What follows is some general advice for the layperson that already owns a bunch of domain names and would like to increase the odds of these domain names selling. Although this advice is based on my two decades’ worth of experience buying and selling domain names, this advice is not aimed at professional domain name investors (a.k.a. domainers) nor am I going to cover pro-active domain name pitching strategies. If, however, you are what I would refer to as an ‘Aspiring Domain Speculator’ looking for a few tips to finally move some of your dusty old domain names, then read on…

WARNING: I am going to be brutally frank here, and I may piss off a few readers, but I want you to go into this with your eyes wide open.

Let’s begin with two important things you need to understand and accept:

Most of your domain names are un-sellableBefore I dive into how you can boost your domain sales, it’s time for a reality check. The number one impediment to what is referred to as “secondary market” domain name sales is the quality – or lack thereof – of the inventory. In general, the kind of inventory that sells best in today’s world is one-word, two-word, and three-word English language .com domain names that directly relate to business products or services. If you are holding non .com inventory (e.g., .net, .org, .biz), or domains that consist of invented words, or are phrases, be prepared for the sad probability that this inventory will not move in your lifetime. Of course there are going to be exceptions to this, but they are, by their very nature, exceptions. Here’s something you probably didn’t know: the most sophisticated domain investing companies run by super smart people will pop the champagne corks if they manage to turn 3% of their domain inventory annually. Yes, only 3% is considered a massive victory! The hard reality is that secondary market domain names are not very liquid assets. This probably means that most of your inventory is not good enough quality to ever sell. Sorry.

It’s still a horrendously inefficient marketWhile the domain name secondary market has made great strides over the last decade, there is still a huge disconnect between the folks that want to buy a domain name – and would be willing to pay serious money for it – and the ability for those folks to actually and easily buy that domain name. Most end user buyers don’t know where to look for secondary market domain names, don’t know how to contact the owners, have no idea how to actually purchase and transfer a domain name, and are generally confused and frustrated by the whole apparatus. The more you can do to soften the edges here the greater the likelihood you will sell some of your domains.

Domain Name Sales TipsOK, now that I have beaten you up about the quality of your domains and the inefficient state of the secondary market, let’s talk about some best practices that will help you sell your domains.

1. Display a “for sale” message on your domain’s home pageBelieve it or not, the number one source of secondary market domain name sales is buyers typing the domain name into their Web browser and navigating to the domain to ‘see if it is available’. The best thing you can do, and really the first thing you must do, to boost your domain name sales is to make sure that your domains resolve to a page that, one way or another, indicates that the domain is for sale and provides some way for the prospective buyer to contact you or purchase the domain right away, whether that be email, phone, chat, or whatever.

There’s a bunch of easy ways you can accomplish this. Your domain name registrar may provide you with a free one-page Website service, which you can use to create a “this domain is for sale” landing page. Alternatively, you can create a single page (perhaps a hidden page hanging off one of your existing Websites) that indicates that your domain names are for sale. You can then forward all of your domain names that are for sale to that one page. If you are feeling ambitious, you can link each of your domain names to its matching ‘buy it now’ purchase page at one of the marketplaces; more on that in a moment. Another more sophisticated option would be to “park” your domain with one of the leading domain parking companies (such as DomainSponsor or the very state-of-the-art DomainNameSales.com) and enable their built-in “for sale” message and contact mechanisms. Whatever you do, make sure that if someone navigates to one of your domain names that they can clearly see your “for sale” message, otherwise you will miss out on a ton of sales opportunities.

2. List your domains in the leading domain name sales marketplacesNot everyone knows that domain name sales marketplaces even exist, but thanks to the fine marketing efforts of the marketplaces more and more people are figuring this out every day. Since these marketplaces are selling millions of dollars’ worth of domain names every week, it’s important that you expose your domain names to these potential buyers. List your domains for sale, preferably at a fixed ‘buy it now’ price, on these leading domain name marketplaces: Afternic and Sedo. (I will cover Go Daddy in a moment…) Domains with fixed ‘buy it now’ prices are way more likely to sell than un-priced ‘make offer’ domains in these marketplaces, but either way you should at least make sure your domains are listed with these marketplaces. There is no fee to list your domains on Afternic and Sedo, but if your domain sells through one of these marketplaces expect to pay a 10-20% sales commission.

3. Take advantage of Go Daddy’s massive reachLove it or hate it, Go Daddy dominates the domain market with its greater than 50% market share. If you really want to crank up your secondary market sales, and your domain names are already registered with Go Daddy, enroll your domains in Go Daddy’s Premium Listings service. The Go Daddy Premium Listings service is free to participate in, super easy to configure, and – most importantly – is a major and highly efficient sales channel. In fact, for some domain owners this is their number one sales channel. There are a few catches, however, if you want to take full advantage of this channel. One, you have to put a fixed price on your domains. And two, Go Daddy’s sales commission is a whopping 30%, but worth it in my opinion because they move a lot of domain names. Here’s an expert tip: the typical Go Daddy buyer isn’t as price-sensitive as the folks shopping on Afternic and Sedo, so you can add 10-20% to your list price on Go Daddy without it negatively impacting your sales velocity compared to the other marketplaces. If your domain names aren’t already registered with Go Daddy, you can still get your domains some exposure on Go Daddy via Afternic’s DLS network or Sedo’s MLS network … or if you are feeling really ambitious and have the technical chops you can transfer your ‘retail’ domains to Go Daddy.

4. Embrace fixed pricing if you really want to move your domainsRegarding fixed pricing, this is always a hotly-debated topic in the domain investor community because some people feel that putting a fixed price on a domain means that you risk leaving money on the table. While that may be true, at least you sold the domain name! Most buyers are turned off by the whole ‘make offer’ thing and just want to be able to browse by price and buy instantly if they see something they like and can afford. Frankly, I’d rather have seller’s remorse than go to my grave still holding an unsold domain name, but the decision to go fixed-price or not is all yours. One thing to keep in mind: if someone contacts you directly about buying one of your fixed-price domain names, you can always ask them to make an offer and/or you can always quote them a higher amount than your fixed-price. It is very unlikely that they have seen the list price elsewhere; most buyers are not that sophisticated.

5. Optimize the WHOIS record for salesAdd a “for sale” message to your WHOIS (domain ownership record) information. Once again, the goal here is to make it blatantly clear to Joe Public that your domain name is for sale. You can include this messaging in one of several ways. You can append the owner’s (a.k.a. registrant’s) name or company name with “This Domain is For Sale”, e.g., instead of listing the company as “Acme Inc.” you would list it as “Acme Inc. – This Domain is For Sale”. Alternatively, you could use a custom email address for your domain registrations that suggests the domain name is for sale, e.g., domainsales@[yourcompanyname].com. Trust me, you cannot be too obvious about this!

6. Don’t hide behind WHOIS privacyIf you are using a WHOIS privacy service, remove it if possible. These services are fantastic if you want to hide your identity as the owner of a domain, but they are a serious impediment to sales because most potential buyers don’t know how to contact a domain owner that is using a WHOIS privacy service. It simply confuses them and is a perceived (if not actual) roadblock. Make it easier for buyers to contact you; ask your domain registrar to remove the WHOIS privacy service.

7. Have realistic price expectationsWe all hear in the popular media about those rare six and seven-figure domain name sales like hotels.com and beer.com, but what folks don’t realize is that these deals represent less than 1% of all the transactions. It would be awesome if you were able to sell one of your domains for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars (and I genuinely hope that you do), but chances are that’s not going to happen. The typical secondary market .com domain name (which is usually a two-word name) sells for around $2,000, and the majority of the rest of the domains that sell change hands for less than $5,000, so keep that in mind when you price your domains. You probably aren’t going to retire on the proceeds of your domain name sales, but it might help you pay off your mortgage faster. For help pricing your domains, ask the domain name marketplaces for assistance or seek the advice of your friendly neighbourhood domain name expert.

By following the domain name sales tips that I have outlined above, you will vastly increase the odds of your domains selling. I wish you much luck and success in doing so, and please let me know how it works out for you.

Domain name expert Bill Sweetman is the President & Lead Ninja of Name Ninja, a boutique domain name consulting firm that helps companies acquire, manage, protect, and profit from their domain names. Bill has provided strategic domain name advice to major companies around the world for over 20 years.